We are cattle at the farm for Google. Not humans. Sources of a profitable product they can broker: attention and purchasing power.
just google? :)
Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
21–30 of 156 posts
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#22Time to break them up.
breaking up chrome would be a blunder though, because of their massive funding to mozilla, it could kill FF
I believe Mozilla's funding comes from the search team at Google, not the browser team. (It's nominally compensation for including Google as the default search engine.) If anything, I'd be more concerned about Chrome, since it might be difficult for Google Search to fund Google Chrome to its current levels without raising arm's-length concerns (i.e. "is this a bona fide payment for services rendered?").
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#23This article doesn’t explain what change Google is supposed to be making and they don’t link to anything that explains it either. (There is a link to what seems to be to a policy change for the ads platform.) Does anyone know what they’re talking about?
Current "Platforms program policies": https://support.google.com/platformspolicy/answer/3013851
>You must not use device fingerprints...
Compare to the update: https://support.google.com/platformspolicy/answer/15738904
[no mention of device fingerprints]
>The changes... [are] less prescriptive with partners in how they target and measure ads.
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
breaking up chrome would be a blunder though, because of their massive funding to mozilla, it could kill FF
I believe Mozilla's funding comes from the search team at Google, not the browser team. (It's nominally compensation for including Google as the default search engine.) If anything, I'd be more concerned about Chrome, since it might be difficult for Google Search to fund Google Chrome to its current levels without raising arm's-length concerns (i.e. "is this a bona fide payment for services rendered?").
good, as long as chrome has such an overwhelming marketshare, reducing its funding sounds like a good idea. the companies that build on chrome can contribute to the funding to keep chrome alive.
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#25This article doesn’t explain what change Google is supposed to be making and they don’t link to anything that explains it either. (There is a link to what seems to be to a policy change for the ads platform.) Does anyone know what they’re talking about?
Read it more carefully (it is easy to miss). They’re going to start using and allowing third party device fingerprinting throughout their ad ecosystem. This is obviously illegal in Europe, the UK and California (no consent), and an unnnamed regulator warns that it intends to take action.
Since it’s a policy that Google’s advertisers have to agree to, it seems like it’s silent on whatever Google might do themselves?
(Yes, that’s contrary to the headline. That’s why I find it confusing.)
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#26Google's philosophy seems to be that intrusive tracking and behavioral advertising are OK as long as they only happen on the user's device.
The result is a worst-of-both-worlds: To an end user, it will still feel as if you're being tracked, with ads following you around, etc, but no worries, your privacy is safe because the advertiser doesn't have access to the data...
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is about Google's new focus on tracking users via device fingerprint, instead of (primarily) via cookies.
Which is, depending on your perspective, either terrifying or just stupid. Right now anti-fingerprinting security is not very high on anyone's minds, but remember that your digital fingerprints follow you EVERYWHERE. You can't turn them off or disable them on your side like cookies. It's sort of like the wholesale elimination of privacy as a concept, you might say. But hence the stupidity! It's too bold a move not to…
> but remember that your digital fingerprints follow you EVERYWHERE. You can't turn them off or disable them on your side like cookies.
I'm honestly curious, if you don't mind clarifying a bit more. How do your digital fingerprints follow you everywhere without your being able to erase them? This thread goes into device fingerprinting, but if one rigorously changes devices and certain use/account practices, how can they still be tracked so totally?
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#28Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternative: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
TIL about Web Audio, an API that allows any web page to find out about the user's sound setup (e.g. channel count and some kind of transfer function of the audio subsystem?) despite there being no legitimate purpose for that.
Is it really a surprise it gets implemented when all browser development outside of Webkit is financed by Google Ads revenue?
Re: Google starts tracking all your devices in 8 weeks
#30A few weeks ago, I was using my mothers PC. Google was erroneously in French, and no language chooser available. So I checked. Firefox sent a HTTP header with a Dutch preference. She was logged in with her Google account, which had a Dutch language preference. Some geolocation providers put her in Dutch speaking cities of Belgium. Still, the Google Algorithm had decided she would speak French. Plenty of other sites make similar errors, especially the biggest ones
So I wonder: Why are we sending out all this info. Fingerprinting is the only actual use. The number of sites using it as it should is minimal. Lets just stop giving it. They don't need a list of audio or video devices. They don't need my installed fonts. They don't believe my language settings when I whack them over the head with it. Let's just fill in defaults everywhere. Maybe provide a whitelist for legitimate sites.